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AlienVault OSSIM vs Snare comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AlienVault OSSIM
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
27th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Snare
Ranking in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
54th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (49th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) category, the mindshare of AlienVault OSSIM is 1.1%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snare is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlienVault OSSIM1.1%
Snare0.8%
Other98.1%
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
 

Featured Reviews

BP
Independent Contractor at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Enables cost-effective security management for small businesses
Scaling for USM is always challenging for any product unless it is purpose-built or overbuilt at the front end. They will use Palo Alto and its competitors, and LevelBlue will manage that implementation. The main area where the AlienVault product was lacking around the 2018 timeframe was in its ability to scale. By pushing it to a cloud-based system, they've largely alleviated scale issues. It's native in Amazon but will also run in Azure. They have worked with cloud service providers to offer enough throughput at a cost reasonable for a corporation. Scaling was their biggest problem, and they've largely conquered those issues.
Frank Eargle - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Engineer at Glasshouse Systems
A highly scalable solution that is easy to manage and super easy to set up
We use Snare for picking up Windows logs, and we used to use it for SQL as well. We had used it for Linux once or twice. We're mainly using it for Windows and Windows flat files The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Technical support is excellent; they are very helpful and responsive."
"The solution is very stable, and compared to QRadar and Splunk, it's very stable."
"The threat policies of the solution are always very advanced and the best in the market, and they are very persistent in terms of keeping up with security protocols."
"The dashboard is the solution's most valuable aspect; it brings everything into one central point where I can actually look at it and go, "Okay, I understand what's going on," and the solution works well and allows me to have visibility into anomalous events."
"What I like about this product, is that it is a fully-fledged solution."
"It is a perfectly nice and free tool for compliance testing, assessment, and some basic vulnerability."
"The solution is free to use."
"It has helped us remediate threats in the past by providing significant events that assisted in identifying suspicious activities, such as logins from multiple countries."
"The best thing about Snare is its format and consistency."
"The most valuable feature of Snare is flexibility or the ability to filter all things you don't want and don't have security value."
"Snare has good agents, especially for Windows."
 

Cons

"The incidence reporting could be better."
"ArcSight works better than AlienVault right now."
"The solution needs more integration with cyber intelligence systems. Our customers want to use a single tool for managing cybersecurity."
"Sometimes it takes very long for your issue to get resolved."
"AlienVault OSSIM should improve the deployment and make it unified like the USM."
"The correlation engine needs to be improved."
"From a management console perspective and the maturity of the dashboards, I would probably put it slightly behind some of the other players that have been in the market for ages."
"AlienVault OSSIM gives unwanted notifications."
"The solution is now developing a SIEM-like feature on Snare Central Server, but it's not complete yet."
"Snare should modernize its GUI a little bit."
"Users will initially find it difficult to identify the event types and installation in Snare."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OSSIM is open source, and USM is the paid license. So, if you want, you can switch to USM. There you will have to buy a license, and they have a support team that helps you out on issues you face."
"We are using a free version of the solution. If you purchase a license there are more features available but the price is a little high. The solution should be cheaper to allow more customers to be able to afford it."
"We are using the community version, which can be used for free."
"The price of AlienVault OSSIM is too high sometimes for us to present to our customers. The price should be lower. We are on a three-year license to use the solution. We had to pay extra for the support."
"OSSIM is free."
"The licensing fees for the non-community edition are paid on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to this."
"AlienVault OSSIM is expensive compared to its competitors."
"AlienVault OSSIM is an open-source solution."
"Snare has reasonable pricing."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate Snare's pricing a four out of ten."
"Snare is a cheap solution because a lot of customers are using it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlienVault OSSIM?
It depends. I would need to review their cost models, but generally, they are on a scaled basis based on throughput usage. Because it's a software as a service solution for their core product for U...
What needs improvement with AlienVault OSSIM?
Scaling for USM is always challenging for any product unless it is purpose-built or overbuilt at the front end. They will use Palo Alto and its competitors, and LevelBlue will manage that implement...
What is your primary use case for AlienVault OSSIM?
This solution is very similar to most of the other MSSPs that you would find out there. When I look at use cases, AlienVault was initially aimed at small to medium businesses. It grew, and that was...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

OSSIM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Council Rock School District
Military, Defence and Security Agencies, Banking Finance and Insurance companies, Retail, Health and Utilities.
Find out what your peers are saying about AlienVault OSSIM vs. Snare and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.